Planting my feet, I let the haze of power wash over me. As my mind switched to the other sight, the one that connected to the network, I focused on the crisscrossing streams of power. They were pretty far away, because I was in House of Leights, but I could still connect. I could still fill my body with strength.
Drawing the inner power, my limbs lengthened; my body grew wide and sturdier. The world looked different through the eyes of my other form, hybrid of the Galinta and Daelighter.
“Chase, please, we don’t know anything more.”
I ignored the pleas of those secured to the wise old Galinta across from me. These were betrayers of Leights. Of my House. Usually I was slow to anger, but when it grew and grew, like it had the last few days, I ended up in a state all should fear. Like nature in itself, I could be calm, or I could bring the wrath of the world down.
“For your sins, you will all die,” I told them, my voice much deeper than it was usually.
“What if we told you where the next secret keeper was?”
I paused, my roped hands whipping out to capture the female’s head. The council had dropped my defectors off, telling us they got very little information from them. It was up to their overlord on how they would be punished. Father let me deal with them. I was the one they tried to kill. I was there when they killed Marsil.
This was my battle to wage.
“Speak now, or you will not speak again,” I said, the branch I was on vibrating as my anger flared once more.
Her long auburn hair was matted and filled with tangles, her face smeared with dirt and blood from whatever the council had done. She was terrified, but her voice did not waver.
“Laous mentioned this just very briefly, but he said he was heading to Washington to find her. Apparently her parents are important diplomats. They actually work for the coalition which handles Daelighter and human relations … the secret government branch that initiated the entire treaty.”
“Does the council know this?” I asked, trying to keep my dread from showing. This was so much worse than we’d originally thought. Kidnappi … abducting – as Callie would say – the daughter of two treaty diplomats. Laous was going to send us to war before he even found the stone.
The female shook her head. “No. I tell you only so that you might consider some leniency for us. You have the final punishment rights.”
She flinched as my ropelike arms tightened across her face.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” My whisper sounded menacing even to me.
Her throat worked as she swallowed, opening and closing her mouth. “I … um … he said she had a stupid grubber name.” She paused, swallowed again, and then said, “Maya Anne Lewis.”
Maya.I rolled the name over in my mind – the secret keeper from house of Leights.
A sense of purpose started to build within me. I withdrew my vines from her. “Thank you. I wish I could save you from your fate,” I told each of them, because it was true. They were my people, which made the betrayal so much harder to bear. “But you made your decision and now you must live with the consequences.”
I turned away, not watching what the Galinta did with those they held in their embrace. It was time for me to go to Washington. I was going to save Maya before Laous got to her.
He had hurt his last secret keeper.
